Melbourne’s Picture-Perfect Cafés

Port Phillip Bay has many kilometres of coastline with stunning foreshore and beaches that provide an interesting and picturesque backdrop for the café along its shoreline. Parkdale Beach Café and Kiosk is one of these. It is elevated on a small cliff a few metres above Parkdale Beach, which, according to some of the older residents, has changed over the years. Many of the interesting rocky reefs have been covered, but it still remains an attractive beach.

The café has benches and outside tables and big sun umbrellas where joggers or beach goers can idly sip a fruit juice or eat a healthy snack while watching the waves break beneath them and at times see dolphins swimming past.

Because this café is ideally situated alongside the cycle and pedestrian beach track, it is very popular with the health and fresh air enthusiasts usually the local beach walkers and cyclists.

Breakfast is served all day until 4pm, and light lunches are also available or just coffee and cake. There is quite a large indoor section with tables, so if the weather is stormy or raining, patrons can enjoy the fare inside. The emphasis here is homemade and all the food is freshly made on the premises. I can personally recommend the coffee and carrot cake.

Parkdale Beach Café and Kiosk is open from 8am to 5pm seven days a week and is situated on Beach Road, Parkdale. There is a small beach access car park beside it and parking is also available along Beach Road.

About 20 kilometres south-east of Melbourne on the same Beach Road is the famous Ricketts Point Tea House.

Originally a small home with a kiosk, it is now a stylish café seating over 200 people. This café is quite unusual as it has been part of the Beaumaris Foreshore Reserve and Marine Sanctuary for over 50 years. It is surrounded by natural bush gardens with electronic barbeques, and is a great starting point to follow the ‚Coastal Art Trail‘, which features many of Australia ’s best known artists.

As well as being a good spot for dining, it is also a good spot for diving and snorkelling. The beach on which the tea house is situated is ideal for families, especially those with young children. The water is quite shallow in many areas, so they can enjoy the fascinating and diverse marine environment while rock-pool rambling or watching the many seabirds who roost on the rocks at low tide and scavenge along the shoreline.

The marine sanctuary is often a host to the bottlenose dolphins that swim through the area and sometimes a lone fairy penguin and even humpback whales have been observed.

Ricketts Point Tea House is quite convenient to access as there are two large car-parking areas on the foreshore nearby and parking on Beach Road opposite the tea house.

Breakfast is served until 12 midday and the menu for lunch is quite diverse but don’t be too late as it closes at 4pm.